If we were going to adopt a new language, I think I could make a solid case for Typescript that might get accepted. I could see making a case for Elm or Purescript, but I don't think either will fly. But Clojure is a lot further out there in terms of adding it to an existing team of PHP/JS/HTML/CSS devs.
In addition, while you note that the JS ecosystem is basically just playing catchup with Clojure, it is (slowly!) catching up. More to the point, ES6 is the future of browsers; we're using Babel and polyfills as a stopgap, but the code we're writing is code which is increasingly capable of running on the browsers on our dev machines. Clojurescript is, let's be honest, never going to be natively supported in Google Chrome. JS, as a language, is getting better, JS build tools are getting better, and the JS ecosystem is getting better. It may have a long way to go, and it may be slow, but it's getting there. From where I stand, the gap between JS and Clojure is just going to get narrower (it's always easier to copy than innovate after all). Why shouldn't I just wait and get the benefits for free?
(Disclaimer: I love the idea of Clojure, and I actively looked for Clojure/Clojurescript jobs the last time I was on the market. But what I found was a job writing ES6/React/Redux, which is almost as good as the hypothetical Clojure job, and has the advantage of existing.)
Not quite sure what you mean by this, but source maps, syntax highlighting and other native extensions were added by the Chromium team over the last year specifically for Clojurescript support.
But, as far as a language running natively in Chrome, none of the languages that transpile to JS do, not Elm, Purescript, etc, so I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to.
I tried that for 6 months then went back to JS only to discover that within those 6 months Facebook and half of the React community had moved on to ES6, and even ES7, which meant that I just missed half a year of the most important phase in the evolution of JS. Great job, says me. I'm having to make up for it now.
What nudged me out of my love affair with CLJS is when I needed to implement a really simple async pattern in CLJS. Everyone pointed me to core.async (later on someone mentioned the cats library which uses monads etc) It didn't feel right to use core.async's syntactically and conceptually complicated CSP pattern to solve a truly simple problem that can be solved far more elegantly with a much simpler and more general pattern using ES7's async/await.
And now that we have decorators, typed data structures, iteration protocols and a myriad of other tools available to us in ES6/ES7 the only thing that is missing is NATIVE immutable types.
</Rant>
Second, ClojureScript has great interop with Js, so there's absolutely nothing stopping you from using a Js library/feature if you so choose.
>And now that we have decorators, typed data structures, iteration protocols and a myriad of other tools available to us in ES6/ES7 the only thing that is missing is NATIVE immutable types.
It boggles my mind that somebody could see this as a positive. The biggest problem with ES6 is that JavaScript just keeps growing as a language. It has lots of features and quirks already, and more are getting added. This is what you end up dealing with when using ES6 + React (https://i.imgur.com/AjSTP20.png).
I think the problem with this is that it adds mental overhead when you're reading and writing code. Something that looks like it might be doing one thing does something subtly different. This leads to hard to debug errors and wastes you time. It also distracts you from the actual problem you're solving.
To each their own Dimitri :) i gave up on CLJS after it was evident to me that JS is maturing and has copied a lot of the stuff I like from CLJS plus some stuff from C# like async/await. Haskell is cool and so is Elm but all of these will ultimately be copied in pieces by the most dominant language on the web (JS) so it's easier to be on the receiving end of all that goodness as opposed to being stuck in any of those niche languages. Appologies. It's just my opinion.
.then(() => doSome(thing)) with bare doSome(thing)
and
.catch(err => doOtherThing(err)) with catch (err) {doOtherThing(err)}
A breakthrough indeed!
I just don't see how's that fundamentally different and why one should have synchronous-like semantics for async operations.
Moreover I do a lot of RxJS and like stuff and it's perfectly normal for me to have async computations steps wrapped in functions. Luckily no one tried to "improve" JS syntax specifically for RxJS.
So I totally get async/await syntax and semantics but it forces me to switch mental context for no good reason and thus is useless and disconcerting.
And it's ridiculous to see this minor "feature" as a reason to switch from CLJS to ES6/ES7
The Extensible Web Manifesto embraces the Babel inspired iterate-before-you-approve spec development model and that just makes JS evolution go so much faster.
So there is no hope for any niche language to unseat JS, and staying with a healthy and growing mainstream standard is far more appealing to me than writing web apps in Lisp-like language that once was a great choice (compared to ES5) but is no longer in that position.
I hope ClojureScript continues to be a niche strong language but I'm really hapoy with the progress being made with JS as a language and ecosystem. Fatigue (what the article is about) is self inflicted IMO.
Nothing is hard to do in CLJS but finding the right way to do things can be hard. For example, why doesn't core.async include promises and even better some async/await equivalent? Why does core.async push CSP as the built in async model to the exclusion of all other async patterns? Why are those only found in some 3rd party libraries?
So you're saying that you have to learn the language and its ecosystem. Please explain how that's different from any other language.
>For example, why doesn't core.async include promises and even better some async/await equivalent?
Because it has different design goals.
>Why are those only found in some 3rd party libraries?
Because most people find the core.async approach to work well. However, since such libraries exist and have great documentation, I fail to see the problem.
In fact, not baking things into the language itself is one of the greatest benefits of Clojure. The language itself is minimal and makes very few assumptions. This means that it can be extended through libraries to many kinds of domains. The more assumptions the core language makes the more rigid it becomes.
I do hope CLJS stays a strong niche language but any hope of it taking over the world is unlikely, IMO.
However, the reason that async/await is difficult to do in ClojureScript as the main reason for leaving it is a strange one. It's clearly still very easy to do, even if ES7 version might be slightly cleaner at the cost of being baked into the core language semantics.
When you compare all the things that are much uglier in JavaScript compared to ClojureScript, it's a bit of a silly argument to cherry pick async semantics in my opinion.
I wouldn't expect ClojureScript to take over the world either. It's obviously never going to displace JavaScript, but it's reasonable to expect that it will continue to grow in popularity and that anybody who wants to work with it will be able to do so professionally.
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean exactly. I don't really understand what the "resorting" part refers to here. Clojure is a modern language with that has excellent syntax with tangible advantages over syntax found in most languages.
The syntax is very uniform and follows the principle of least astonishment well. The s-exps provide additional visual information about relationships in code making it more scannable. Finally, the syntax facilitates structural editing making it much easier to manipulate in the editor.
>ClojureScript is extremely expressive but something about the Lisp form makes me spend too much time thinking about the code rather than the problem domain
Perhaps that might have something to do with the fact that you've only used Lisp for 6 months, while you probably have years of experience working with Algol style syntax you're familiar with.
There's absolutely nothing inherent in Lisp syntax that distracts from the business logic. If anything, my experience is that it puts you closer to the business logic as there's a lot less syntactic noise.
>and in the end very few people (Lisp users mostly) will be able to maintain the code
That's completely false. My team has been using Clojure for the past 5 years and we've never had trouble hiring people to work with it. None of the people we've hired over the years had any experience with Clojure or even FP for the most part. The average learning curve to becoming productive tends to be a couple of weeks. We also hire co-op students every 4 months and all of them have learned the language quickly and enjoyed working with it.
A new hire doesn't have to become an expert to start doing useful things. Learning the basics takes very little time, and they can pick up new concepts as they need to. Personally, I wouldn't hire somebody who was unwilling to work with a new language as it implies the sort of rigidity that antithetical to the developer mindset.
> So what am I doing writing a web app in a Lisp like language unless i really enjoy thinking about algorithms more than UX
That's funny since ClojureScript provided the first environment for developing web apps where you could get instant feedback on the UI making it much easier to focus on UX.
Having a live environment with a REPL makes it much easier to experiment as it cuts down the time between making a change and seeing the effect. This is one of the greatest tools for being able to experiment with the UI and provide the a good UX.
>What matters to me is having a good modern language with large enough eco system and that I could use to build kick ass UX
This is precisely why I, and many others, use ClojureScript. If Js is your idea of a modern language I simply don't know what else to say here to be honest.
Again, if you prefer working with Js that's perfectly fine. However, your rationalization of that decision is flimsy at best, and really boils down to the fact that you'd rather use something you're more familiar with.
Sure, but that's not very interesting in and of itself. The question is whether there's enough of a community to make the language viable and whether you can get a job using it.
Thousands of people are happily working with ClojureScript today, and lots of companies make accommodations such as remote work.
>Who will maintain my code? The few people I know who know ClojureScript?
I've always found this argument very strange myself. My experience is that the language is usually a small aspect of what's involved in maintaining a project. You have to learn tools, libraries, and the architecture around the project. This tends to vary greatly place to place. Learning the language is just a small aspect of that and anybody who's not capable of learning a new language probably won't do a good job with the rest either.
So to answer the question, the person you work with and train to use the language usually. As I've already pointed out, I've trained lots of people to work with Clojure and it doesn't take long for people to become productive.
>How hard is it to find a ClojureScript dev or anyone interested in working on it?
Not very, lots of people apply specifically because they want to try a new language. Last guy we hired had prior experience working with PHP and C#, and never touched a functional language in his life. His reason for applying was precisely that he wanted to try working with Clojure. He finished his first project and put it in production in his first 6 months on the job with minimal supervision.
>Can my company hire hundreds of engineers who love it and are easy to replace if they leave.
The fact of the matter is that good engineers aren't easy to replace when they leave. This has nothing to do with their choice of language.
> Clojurescript's biggest problem, however, is that it has people like yourself who want to shove Lisp Is The Truth down everyone else' throat which people like myself have no tolerance for :)
I'm not shoving any truth down your throat, at no point did I suggest that you should switch back to ClojureScript from Js. In fact, I've repeatedly stated that you should use Js if you like it.
I'm just pointing out the fallacies that you're stating when you're fumbling to justify the reason you switched back. Something nobody asked you to do by the way.
You started out complaining that core.async is hard to use. When I pointed out that there's a promises library you pivoted to complaining that libraries are hard to find, even though it's the first result for "promises clojurescript" on Google. When I asked you what specifically was hard to do, you said that it's just "an argument plot", and now you've moved on to some vague notions regarding difficulty of hiring developers to work with ClojureScript.
Why don't you just say that the actual reason that you like Js better is that you're more comfortable using it. That's a perfectly fine answer.
There's a long discussion here, which I'm pretty sure you're already aware of, on the tradeoffs:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/clojurescript/LBy0yi...
Each approach has its downsides, but clearly core.async and promises work just fine here.
>More importantly why shouldn't i use something like ESLisp if I am into lisp but want to work with JS features directly? Why would I want to mix JS with CLJS amd require everyone who maintains my code to know both?
Language semantics is why. ClojureScript has much cleaner semantics than Js and languages that provide syntax sugar on top of it. It's immutable by default, has clean and consistent syntax, and far less gotchas than Js.
Nobody actually mixes Js with ClojureScript. People write libraries backed by Js internally, but the users of these libraries don't have to know or care about that.
The real question is why would somebody want to learn the giant clusterfuck that ES6/7 constitutes when far saner alternatives are available.
> i gave up on CLJS after it was evident to me that JS is maturing and has copied a lot of the stuff I like from CLJS plus some stuff from C# like async/await.
Adding features to an already poorly designed language does not make it better. You end up with a giant kitchen sink language that takes inordinate brainpower to work with. We've already seen that this is a bad idea with languages like C++ and Scala. And no, you can't just learn a snae subset of the language, because sooner or later you have to deal with code written by other people.
If working with a giant quirky mess that looks like this https://i.imgur.com/AjSTP20.png is you cup of tea then who am I to stop you, but I certainly question that it's a rational choice. :)
What? Async/await in CLJS is:
(defn async-fn [] (go true))
(go (<! (async-fn)))
How is that syntactically and conceptually complicated compared to async/await?
(defmacro go-catching [& body] `(go (try ~@body (catch js/Error e# e#))))
(defmacro <? [chan] `(let [res# (<! chan)] (if (instance? js/Error res#) (throw res#) res#)))
Used like this:
(go-catching (<? (async-fn)))
Show us how you implement this simple and very common concurrent pattern with ClojureScript. I've seen stuff that implement this in ClojureScript and it ain't pretty (to say the least) Impress me! :)
In ES7:
async function fAsync() {
try { var results = await Promise.all([asyncOpA, asyncOpB, asyncOpC]) } catch (e) { ... } }
(go (try (let [ops [asyncOpA asyncOpB asyncOpC]] (core.async/take (count ops) (apply core.async/merge ops))) (catch js/Error e ...)))
Where asyncOp* uses go-catching.
Moreover, it has funcool/cats bindings, so you can use promises in mlet and alet macros if you are into monad thing ;)
Re: cats
Not a big fan of abstractions that don't contribute to code simplicity. What is the percentage of programmer who dig monads? Less than 1% probably.
(go-catching (<? (async-all [asyncOpA asyncOpB asyncOpC])))
And yes, that handles errors exactly like synchronous code does. The total number of lines for implementing go-catching, <? and async-all shouldn't take more than 20-30 loc, if not less.
Now, if 20-30 loc is too much for you to write, then by all means use JS.
I've been using ClojureScript/Reagent for about a year now and all this JS tooling talk goes way over my head, I haven't needed to use any tooling other than lein cljsbuild for a while now, and it's glorious. If the Clojure community / ClojureScript was more approachable to beginners I think ClojureScript would be taking over right now.
Install OpenJDK: http://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu/
Install Leiningen: http://leiningen.org/
Create a new project and run it:
lein new reagent myapp cd myapp
lein figwheel
Once figwheel starts, you can edit src/cljs/myapp/core.cljs and any changes you make will be reflected live in the browser without having to reload the page. Now consider what you'd need to setup to get the same thing with Js/React.
I think the problem is that a lot of people are already familiar with Js and tooling around it, so integrating more tools piecemeal doesn't feel as hard as diving into a whole new ecosystem.
I think Lisp in all its flavors is in the same bucket with Haskell, i.e. not a language that will ever go mainstream but an important laboratory for exploring ideas that eventually trickle down into more mainstream languages.
Clojurescript is a case in point. Statistically its userbase is zero but it's been the source of several useful techniques.
The answer to both questions is a yes. There are thousands of people working with ClojureScript today and there are lots of companies hiring for Clojure/Script jobs at this very moment.
In fact, the demand appears to outpace supply resulting in benefits such as accommodation for remote work (https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/3yhm7k/looking_for...).
Thanks to the irrational bias against Lisp you're also competing against a smaller pool of developers when you look for Clojure jobs. Seems like a win to me.
But it's not the case that number of users is irrelevant. If I commit to Clojurescript (or Haskell, or any other niche language), I'm cutting my prospective job market down by 95%+. This means fewer companies I can work with, fewer places I can live, and fewer gigs available overall. Some might consider the tradeoff worth it but I don't.
While you might be cutting down the job market, you're also focusing on companies that are forward thinking, get to work with great technology, and get perks such as remote work. The most exciting part for me is that you get to shape the future of the ecosystem. Being on the ground floor of a new technology means that you get a lot of say in how it will evolve. For me the tradeoff was absolutely worth it, but I can understand how it's not for everyone.
- You don't need to bring your own persistent data structure lib (ImmutableJS/mori/etc,)
- Don't need to bring a functional utility lib (lodash/ramda/etc)
- The build ecosystem revolves around a really solid piece of software in Leiningen (that has a ridiculously high level of adoption)
- Hot reloading (mainly through Figwheel) is simply magical (it's stable and "just works".) The amount of work to get a hot reloading environment setup and maintained with Webpack and various loaders is way too much, and often involves actual changes to application code to support it, which is unacceptable.
- The language itself is designed from the ground up to be functional
This is just what I can think of off the top of my head after a few glasses of wine, but there's a ton of reasons why we as JS developers should start taking a hard look at Clojurescript again.